The Supreme Court of Chechnya upheld the decision to recognize an article from the Great Encyclopedia as extremist

On May 25, 2010, the Supreme Court of Chechnya upheld the decision of the Zavodskoy District Court of Grozny, which recognized the article on Chechnya in Volume 58 of the Big Encyclopedia (Terra publishing house) as extremist material.

According to the Commissioner for Human Rights in Chechnya, Nurdi Nukhazhiev, the court materials on recognizing the encyclopedic article about Chechnya and Chechens as extremist will be transferred to the RF Investigative Committee to resolve the issue of initiating a criminal case (probably under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Recall that earlier this article was criticized by experts from the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. According to their conclusion, the material contains " a gross falsification of the history of the Chechen people, as well as biased opinions that can cause hatred and enmity towards the Chechens ."

Note that the mechanism for enforcing such a ban is still unclear. The Chechen side and the court insist on seizing the entire volume. For example, Murad Musaev, a lawyer for the Commissioner for Human Rights in Chechnya, noted: “ We had to follow some path: either seize the volume or tear out 15 pages from the volume, and this could be regarded as damage to someone else’s property, since the encyclopedia belongs to legal or individuals... "

However, firstly, the storage of even material recognized as extremist is by no means a crime (and for personal purposes, for example, storage in a personal library, is not even an administrative offense), and secondly, when an entire volume is seized, the actual ban is subject to a significant amount of materials for which there were no claims from law enforcement agencies.

This again raises the question of the absence of real mechanisms to ensure a ban on the distribution of materials recognized as extremist, which are not an independent publication, but only part of the publication (for example, an article in a book, newspaper, etc.). In our opinion, the requirement to withdraw the entire publication currently has no legal grounds, and the whole situation as a whole requires a special explanation from the Supreme Court of Russia.

So far, the only legitimate way to ensure such a ban (if, of course, to exclude the option of tearing pages out of the book) seems to us to be sticking up the corresponding pages in the copies of the disputed volume that continue to be sold.

In early June 2010, the media reported that in Moscow 58 volumes were confiscated from libraries and government institutions in Moscow. "This volume of the encyclopedia has already been withdrawn from the State Library named after V.I. Lenin, the library of the State Duma of Russia and educational institutions. The sale of volume 58 of the Great Encyclopedia in bookstores and other retail outlets of book products has also been discontinued," said lawyer Murad Musaev, who represented interests of the litigator.

Sources

• The volume of the encyclopedia "Terra" can already be confiscated - Ombudsman's lawyer // RIA News. 2010. May 25.
• Supreme Court of Chechnya confirmed that the article in the "Terra" encyclopedia is extremist // RIA News. 2010. May 25.
• The volume of the Great Encyclopedia, recognized as extremist, is withdrawn from circulation // IA REGNUM. 2010. June 8. *